In your new world, my children, let there be freedom and let there be pity… That is all I ask."
Chapter 10 NINETEEN, TWENTY, MY PLATE'S EMPTY
Hercule Poirot walked home along the deserted streets.
An unobtrusive figure joined him.
"Well?" said Mr. Barnes.
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.
Barnes said: "What line did he take?"
"He admitted everything and pleaded justification.
He said that this country needs him."
"So it does," said Mr. Barnes.
He added after a minute or two, "Don't you think so?"
"Yes, I do."
"Well, then -"
"We may be wrong," said Hercule Poirot.
"I never thought of that," said Mr. Barnes. "So we may."
They walked on for a little way, then Barnes asked curiously: "What are you thinking about?"
Hercule Poirot quoted: "Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being King."
"Hm – I see -" said Mr. Barnes. "Saul – after the Amalekites.
Yes, you could think of it that way."
They walked on a little further, then Barnes said: "I take the tube here.
Good-night, Poirot."
He paused, then said awkwardly: "You know – there's something I'd like to tell you."
"Yes, mon ami?"
"Feel I owe it to you.
Led you astray unintentionally.
Fact of the matter is, Albert Chapman, Q.X.912."
"Yes?"
"I'm Albert Chapman.
That's partly why I was so interested.
I knew, you see, that I'd never had a wife."
He hurried away, chuckling. Poirot stood stock still. Then his eye opened, his eyebrows rose.
He said to himself: "Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty -"
And went home.